Introduction

Real-time voice AI infrastructure bridging PSTN/SIP and AI agents.

What is Telepath?

Telepath is the Real-Time Voice AI Infrastructure that bridges the gap between traditional telephony (PSTN/SIP) and modern AI Agents. It functions as a zero-latency WebSocket bridge, enabling any AI voice agent to receive and respond to real phone calls without the complexity of building telephony integrations from scratch.

Whether you're building a customer service bot, an outbound sales agent, or an appointment scheduler, Telepath handles all the hard parts — SIP negotiation, codec transcoding, VAD (Voice Activity Detection), and real-time audio streaming — so your team can focus on the AI experience itself.

Core Architecture

Telepath sits between your carrier and your AI agent, acting as a transparent real-time bridge:

1. PSTN/Carrier sends audio via SIP

   A caller dials your number. Your carrier (Twilio, Telnyx, Vonage, or your own SIP provider) routes the call to Telepath's SIP endpoint using a standard SIP trunk configuration.

2. Telepath converts SIP/RTP into a WebSocket stream

   Telepath accepts the incoming SIP INVITE, negotiates the media session, and immediately opens a WebSocket connection to your configured AI agent endpoint. Incoming RTP audio is transcoded and streamed in real time.

3. AI agent processes the stream

   Your AI agent (OpenAI Realtime API, ElevenLabs Conversational AI, or your own custom WebSocket server) receives the audio stream, performs speech recognition and language model inference, and streams audio responses back through the WebSocket.

4. Telepath returns the response to the caller in real time

   Telepath converts the AI's audio response back into RTP and delivers it to the caller via the established SIP session — all with approximately 12ms of bridge latency added by Telepath itself.

Key Features

Supported Integrations

AI Providers

• OpenAI Realtime API — Direct WebSocket integration with GPT-4o Realtime for low-latency speech-to-speech conversations.
• ElevenLabs Conversational AI — Stream audio to and from ElevenLabs' real-time voice agents with full barge-in support.
• Custom WebSocket Servers — Connect any WebSocket-based AI endpoint using Telepath's standard audio streaming protocol.

Carriers

• Twilio — Configure a Twilio Elastic SIP Trunk to route calls to your Telepath SIP endpoint.
• Telnyx — Use a Telnyx SIP Connection with your Telepath credentials.
• Vonage — Route calls through a Vonage SIP trunk pointed at Telepath.
• Custom SIP Providers — Any carrier or PBX that supports standard SIP trunking works with Telepath out of the box.

Security & Compliance

Telepath is built with security at every layer:

• AES-256 encryption — All audio streams are encrypted in transit.
• DTMF support — In-band and out-of-band DTMF tones are forwarded to your AI agent for keypad input handling.
• Webhook-based lifecycle notifications — Receive real-time events for call start, answer, end, and error states via configurable webhooks.
• Voice Activity Detection (VAD) — Configurable VAD sensitivity prevents unnecessary AI activations from background noise.

Getting Started

Setting up Telepath takes just three steps:

1. Create a Connection

   Log in to the Telepath dashboard and create your first connection (SIP trunk). You'll link your AI agent's WebSocket URL and receive your SIP credentials.

2. Configure Your Carrier

   Point your carrier's SIP trunk at Telepath's SIP endpoint using the credentials from your connection. Telepath supports all major carriers and custom SIP providers.

3. Go Live

   Make a test call to verify your setup. Once confirmed, Telepath handles all incoming calls automatically — routing audio between your carrier and AI agent in real time.

Next Steps